Honey & Spice

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-17

Chapters 18-22

Chapter 23-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 11-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 11 Summary

Malakai waits by his car, and Kiki notes how attractive he is. She’s self-conscious, but also comfortable around him. She realizes he’s listening to a playlist she made for Brown Sugar and reveals she named her show after the D’Angelo album. He compares her to the scotch bonnet, a pepper that is a staple of many Nigerian meals. He says the flavor makes things more exciting and makes “Scotch” his nickname for her. He takes her to Eastside to a diner named Sweetest Ting and Kiki is won over by the ambiance and the food. He introduces Kiki to Meji, the owner, a friend and mentor to Malakai. They eat and talk. Malakai shares how he found the restaurant when he was walking around, new to town, and police approached him with hostility. They searched him, claiming he was being aggressive. Meji intervened, taking Malakai into the restaurant and feeding him, and they became friends. Sweetest Ting became Malakai’s space. Kiki shares that a spot in the library, next to the African histories, is her space.

Kiki starts calling him Kai as they enjoy their food. Kiki suggests that maybe he wasn’t communicating clearly with the girls he was dating, but she decides he isn’t a Wasteman after all. Malakai admires how Kiki speaks her mind. He tells her about a girl he was dating, Ama. They then interview a couple who are really into one another. As Malakai drives her home, Kiki tells him how hard it was when her mother was sick and being treated for cancer, and how she was determined to be strong. Music was her refuge, and so was the library. But now, she admits, she doesn’t know how not to repress things. He says he enjoys hanging out with her, and Kiki is pleased.

Chapter 12 Summary

An excerpt by Lala Jacobs from The Blackwell Beat, a news and gossip webcast, expresses admiration for Kiki and Malakai’s relationship and advertises their upcoming Gotta Hear Both Sides show. Aminah reports that listeners for the show are growing. Kiki is thrown when her old school friend Rianne Tucker follows her on ProntoPic. Kiki meets Malakai for a coffee date and he flirts with her. She teases him back. The barista admires how cute they are together, and they become local celebrities in the Blackwell gossip. Malakai observes that they are becoming friends.

Kiki is nervous about going to Ty Baptiste’s birthday party with Malakai and mixing socially. She tells Malakai about a Romance Convention she had planned on attending to meet a Nigerian author she admires, Idan Fadaka, who writes Afrofuturistic dystopian fantasy. Her favorite character is Shangaya, a regular girl who discovers her powers and becomes a “vigilante warrior queen” (172). But Kiki returned her tickets because Aminah can’t go with her. She feels silly that she’s revealed her love of romantasy and cosplay to him.

Chapter 13 Summary

This chapter flashes back to Kiki in secondary school (high school), sitting with friends during a free period between classes. Lysha and Yinda want her to come out with them. Her best friend, Rianne Tucker, is dating Nile, who had once made moves on Kiki. Her mother is sick, and Kiki is struggling. Her mother came from Nigeria at 17 and put herself through university, then fell in love with her father, who also emigrated from Nigeria. Together they opened a Nigerian restaurant. Kiki admires her mother and fears losing her. Her friends convince Kiki to come to a party on Saturday by scolding her that she’s not any fun anymore.

Chapter 14 Summary

The chapter begins with Kiki and Malakai doing the second episode of “Gotta Hear Both Sides.” Kiki reflects on how she has made plans to meet up with a new acquaintance while they are both in Lagos over Christmas. Malakai tells a story of how he thought he was impressing Kiki in class by answering a question she got wrong and, instead, she just got mad at him. Their banter is amusing, but they also reveal themselves to one another. Malakai publicly apologizes to the girls he led on and Kiki is surprised by his honesty.

Chapter 15 Summary

Kiki is studying when her phone rings. Her show with Malakai is a hit and they are admired on social media. Malakai calls to say he is reading Kiki’s favorite author and is very drawn into the story. He wonders why more people don’t know this author and Kiki replies, “I’m thinking just your run of the mill institutional racism in the publishing industry” (187). He admires the love between Niyo and Shangaya, where he gives her a thousand jars of honey and a thousand jars of spice at their wedding (188). Malakai says, “The more I get to know you the more I realize how much of you there is. I want to know it all” (190). They tease each other about what they are wearing to bed, but then his father calls. Kiki sees she is tagged in a throwback photo by Rianne that identifies them as best friends for life.

Chapter 16 Summary

This chapter flashes back to high school and the party Kiki is going to. She wants to forget the sight of her mother in the hospital, frail and emaciated. She is inebriated, and Nile takes her to a bedroom of the house and starts to kiss her. Kiki pulls away, mentioning Rianne. Nile claims Rianna had said mean things about Kiki behind her back, and Kiki is hurt and confused. She pushes Nile away and texts Rianne, but Nile tells Rianne that Kiki came after him. Rianne is angry and blocks Kiki’s texts, and her friends gang up on her. Kiki allows herself to be cast out, because, she feels, “You couldn’t be caught out if you kept yourself out” (198).

Chapter 17 Summary

Aminah and Kiki are power-walking around campus while Kiki wonders why Rianne is trying to get in touch with her. Aminah teases Kiki about Malakai and is happy that Kiki is coming with her to events. Aminah admits that she likes Kofi and sees herself with him, but feels she’s got to make him work so he won’t take her for granted. They see Shanti and Chioma walking together and learn the girls are friends now. They both mention how they once felt that Kiki was holding herself apart—“this weird floater who judges us from the outside” (205) Chioma says—and Shanti confirms it felt like Kiki thought she was better than the rest of them. Now Kiki seems more relaxed and engaged. Kiki admits she was scared of exposing herself and realizes that made her a hypocrite, but now she is ready to let down her guard and integrate. She confesses to the girls that she was hooking up with Zack Kingsford. Malakai texts, inviting Kiki over for dinner the next day. She agrees to go out to dinner with the girls but feels guilty when they praise her and Malakai as if they are a real couple.

Chapters 11-17 Analysis

This middle section of the book significantly develops the character of Kiki and her backstory and also leans into the relationship between Kiki and Malakai, showing the reader that their feelings are real even if they have not realized it yet. Crucially, this middle part references the honey and spice of the title, when Malakai uses these words to Kiki and making declarations that imply that he loves her. As part of the theme of Love and the Risk of Betrayal, these chapters show Kiki softening and opening up to new relationships and new experiences as her supposedly fake relationship with Malakai turns into friendship and she begins opening up to other acquaintances besides Aminah. The two chapters that tell the backstory of what happened with Nile and Rianne reveal why Kiki is so determined to control her friend groups and has insisted on closing herself off. Nile’s behavior also reveals why she is so quick to judge and dismiss men, as she did Malakai. In acknowledging that she was a hypocrite, Kiki shows that she has engaged in some reflection and now understands her actions from the viewpoint of others, which illustrates her growth as a character. This growth is mirrored by Malakai’s public apology about his Wasteman behavior, which shows they are growing together. Likewise, the nicknames they have for one another and the interests and stories they reveal show how they are growing closer, establishing a relationship that is built on friendship first, though sexual attraction is present and will develop increasingly as the book progresses.

The question of knowing when you want to be with someone romantically surfaces repeatedly in these sections: in both the couple that Kiki interviews at Sweetest Ting and Aminah’s discussion of her feelings for Kofi. While “instalove” (love at first sight) is a recognized trope of the romance genre, this “knowing” seems to be an instinctive recognition of compatibility or understanding. This awareness of how other relationships unfold reflects on Kiki and Malakai’s, providing a touch of irony since, for Kiki’s part, she refuses to see it as a relationship and is instead clinging to the premise of fakery. Malakai overtly expresses his interest, showing that he is more emotionally mature than Kiki, at this point, and also becoming invested—an imbalance that creates interesting tension and suspense for the narrative.

Babalola continues to frankly address issues around Cultural Pride and Heritage, including racism, in ways that add realism to the narrative and provide awareness to the reader. In mentioning institutional racism in the publishing world, Kiki alludes to a long-standing difficulty for writers of color in English-speaking markets like the US and UK to be fairly represented in publisher’s lists. Malakai reveals being the target of police harassment when he was apprehended and searched, a disproportionately common experience for young Black men in Britain. Babalola also shows the colorism that can take place within ethnic groups where lighter skin tones are considered more attractive than darker. Zack Kingsford, for instance, takes pride in having a comparatively lighter skin tone, and Nile, when he is manipulating Kiki, claims that Rianne made a slur about Kiki’s skin tone. This acknowledgement of racism and discrimination adds to the verisimilitude of the novel, making the events of the novel feel more real, not romanticized.

This section also shows a progression in Kiki’s character as she engages more with others, part of the theme Community Versus Competition. Shared creative endeavors—Malakai’s film, Kiki’s show, and the Fakada book series—bond the two protagonists, suggesting that their energies and talents make them a good fit. While Idan Fakada’s Ifekonia series is made up for the novel, the love affair between those leads offers a parallel for Babalola’s protagonists to imaginatively play out a successful and fulfilling romance. At the same time, Kiki’s cautious new forays into friendship with Shanti and Chioma suggest she is increasingly ready to allow other kinds of joy and intimacy into her life, healing the wounds from her past experience and creating a space where she can fully belong, fully be herself. This section is therefore leading toward the book’s positive resolutions.